A GREAT deal of attention is currently being focused on the number of public order offences being committed on the streets of St Helier.

There is also concern that, all too often, incidents involving drink and unruly behaviour develop into violent confron-tations.

It is clearly appropriate that law-abiding citizens should be worried about public disorder, but disturbing figures published yesterday indicate that Jersey also sees more than its fair share of violent behaviour behind closed doors.

Data collected by the police shows that the number of incidents involving domestic attacks has risen in the past two or three years. There were more than 900 recorded cases last year, although that might merely be the tip of the iceberg given that many such assaults still remain unreported. A sense of stigma and shame are, sadly, very much a part of the feelings of many victims.

As well as highlighting the increased incidence of domestic violence, the police say that some 300 of the victims they have interviewed can be classified as ‘high risk’ — which presumably means that they remain in danger of suffering new attacks at the hands of violent spouses or, in other cases, abusive parents.

Through an analytic initiative which is costly in terms of time and manpower, the force is now in possession of more information about domestic violent crime than ever before and is therefore able to offer higher levels of protection.

That said, the efforts of police officers will, on their own, never be enough to combat and control this category of crime. But it is an area in which the public can play a vital preventative role.

Everyone must take on board that although domestic crime is characterised by being committed chiefly in private homes, it is of deep public concern. A blind eye might have been turned in the past — and even in the present in some cultures — to supposedly private matters, but this attitude is now utterly unacceptable.

The clear duty of those in the know ab-out such activity — which is not only criminal but also cowardly in that the weak are preyed upon — is to take their information to the police.
Such action must be the rule and not the exception if the brutal victimisation of women and children which appears to be all too widespread in our community is to be combated successfully.